RAINDEAR wrote:

please, can anyone tell me the usda zone of
a) the location of albuquerque, NM
b) if different, the area apx. 35 miles south of albuquerque (it CAN be
different, as the altitude is lower than albuq)

By 35 miles south of Albuquerque, do you mean near Los Trujillos or
Belen?

From the plant hardiness zone map at:
http://www.growit.com/bin/USDAZoneMaps.exe?MyState=NM

Albuquerque looks like zone 7B and the area around Los Trujillos or
Belen is 7A.

i'd really appreciate it so i can start planning all the goodies i'm gonna
be able to grow (am now in New Hamster zone 4a).

Hardiness zone is basically a way to categorizing the coldness of the
winter. It only has a weak correlation with when it is safe to plant
frost tender plants. That is based upon the last killing frost. In
desert climates, this date is much later because of the wide daily
temperature extremes.

Based upon the last kiling frost map at:
http://www.nm.nrcs.usda.gov/Technica...atelastkillfro
stspring.jpg

The average last killing frost in Albuquerque is between April 15 and 20.
In Belen and Los Turjillos, it is between April 10 and 15.

Since weather is seldom average, the other important date is the "Frost
Free Date" which is actually the date there is a 90% chance that there
will be no frost and when it is assumed safe to plant tender crops like
tomatoes if one checks the weather report first. (in other words, don't
use this date blindly, there is a 10% chance this date is wrong and the
weather report can tell you if it is likely) Based upon the chart at:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/document.../Spring32F.pdf

The date that there is less than a 10% chance of frost is around May 25.
That is due to the desert climate and the wide swing in daily
temperature.

There is also a heat zone that determines what plants can be gown. Many
nurseries haven't started supporting the heat zone yet. Using the heat
zone map at:
http://www.ahs.org/publications/heat_zone_map.htm

The heat zone is 8 meaning that it has 90 to 120 days above 86F each
year.
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